Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[Scribner's Mountain Maple]

Thanks for the info, I just went to "try again" but no go. The FAT LADY has sung.

[DrTimPerkins]

We are DONE! A quick 3 week season. Turned out alright, although Mother Nature had us worried much of the time. In the end it turned out OK.

Finished with 0.53 gal/tap. We feel pretty fortunate to get that, since we were never able to get one of our pumps to get more than about 12" Hg vacuum when the sap was running (we added several new mainlines and studies to that pump, and apparently exceeded the CFM limits....guess we'll be looking for another pump). If we'd had decent vacuum we would have hit 0.65 gallons/tap or better. Much of it was dark syrup but with good flavor. That total doesn't include another 68 gallons of stuff that wouldn't go through the filter press this afternoon (which is why we stopped). We didn't even bother boiling out the sweet in the pans as we would have gotten the same results. Our sugar content started out fairly high and stayed that way through much of the season. Was 1.8 and 1.6 Brix in our two sections this morning.

So on to the next step....trying to quickly pull together and make sense of all the data for the Leader Evaporator Co. Open House this Friday/Saturday and the Bascom Open House the next weekend. Hope to see many of you there.

[spud]

Tomorrow morning the last of my sap will be going. It looks like I will wind up getting a .4GPT average. My average sugar content was low but I still had fun. If I had a 2% average I would have gotten .5+ I plan to make some mainline changes for next year. I am being told Canada is not having a good year. Time will tell on what bulk price will be.

Spud

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

We are DONE! A quick 3 week season. Turned out alright, although Mother Nature had us worried much of the time. In the end it turned out OK.

Finished with 0.53 gal/tap. We feel pretty fortunate to get that, since we were never able to get one of our pumps to get more than about 12" Hg vacuum when the sap was running (we added several new mainlines and studies to that pump, and apparently exceeded the CFM limits....guess we'll be looking for another pump). If we'd had decent vacuum we would have hit 0.65 gallons/tap or better. Much of it was dark syrup but with good flavor. That total doesn't include another 68 gallons of stuff that wouldn't go through the filter press this afternoon (which is why we stopped). We didn't even bother boiling out the sweet in the pans as we would have gotten the same results. Our sugar content started out fairly high and stayed that way through much of the season. Was 1.8 and 1.6 Brix in our two sections this morning.

So on to the next step....trying to quickly pull together and make sense of all the data for the Leader Evaporator Co. Open House this Friday/Saturday and the Bascom Open House the next weekend. Hope to see many of you there.

So doc you said your selling the pump cheap because it's to small for your study?:-D

[DrTimPerkins]

So doc you said your selling the pump cheap because it's to small for your study?:-D

Good try Flats....but no. We're probably going to purchase a duplicate pump (Busch 1142-3 phase) and put it right next to the first one and split the two sections of the woods....half on one pump and half on the other. That way it's also a backup in case one goes down. We'll plumb them together with a pipe that is normally closed, but could be opened if need be.

Here's why we need a second (or bigger) pump. Had 24 of these mini-releasers last year. We added 4 new releasers this year, plus several new miles of mainline and 30 large (40 gal) vacuum chambers to collect sap from individual trees over the entire season. When the sap is running well, these things are really popping, which takes a lot of vacuum to recover from. Nothing wrong with our pump, but this was just enough to push us over the edge in terms of CFM requirements.

shed.jpg releasers.jpg

The nice thing is that I've already gotten one quote for another Busch pump (still need to get a couple more).....and they've come down in price some since we bought our original two.

[sjdoyon]

Started to make some Dark Amber today, still making over 200 gallons of syrup each day. Cold temps in the 20s next few nights and no sun so hopefully we'll be good going into the weekend.

[Brokermike]

Has anyone made syrup in May?

[chevypower]

We pulled the plug the other day since we were having trouble getting it through the press. Ended up with 1868 gallons on the year, not bad considering how the season started out.

[spud]

Sent the kids out in the woods yesterday to pull spouts. They should be done today for sure. Sunday we are planting apple trees. The kids are home all week for school vacation and it seems to be working out well for me. This year I tapped a few less trees (5950) but still got 2400 gallons of syrup for a total. The CV2 spouts worked great. I never had a single spout plug up all season. We are not completely done pulling spouts (but over half way) and only had 4-5 tips break off. My sap runs this year were larger then they have ever been but just not as many because March was a poor month with only 3 runs. I don't see myself using anything but the CV2s in the future. Another great thing about using them was the kids were able to put the new CVs on the drops during Christmas vacation (6 weeks before tapping). This made tapping faster for me. We are hoping to set the new woods up for next season and have 2-3000 more taps. Only time will tell on that.

Spud

[opiejudd]

We made 82 gallons this year. Not nearly as much as we should have made. But we are up from our 25 gallons last year. And we learned a lot this year with the new arch and a correctly setup vacuum system. Thanks to maple trader. Next year we are shooting for 300 gallons on a 2.5x8 with up coming improvements.